A member of a church congregation has spoken of the sense of “betrayal” he felt when a fellow churchgoer admitted he had conned him as part of a £3million fraud.

Patrick Coppeard, of Spring Grove in Loughton, pleaded guilty yesterday to the fraud by abuse of position yesterday at Chelmsford Crown Court.

The former stockbroker for Merrill Lynch and magistrate has been told he faces a substantial prison sentence after a defrauded 60 parishioners at St John’s Church in High Road, Buckhurst Hill.

The 49-year-old, who chaired the church’s development and buildings committees, took money from his fellow worshippers on the pretext it would be invested with high guaranteed returns.

What Coppeard did with the money is yet to be made public, but he paid investors returns by raising money from new victims to fend off suspicion.

Rob Smith, former treasurer and mouthpiece for the church, lost money as a result of the fraud, which was carried out between January 2008 and May 2013.

He has spoken of the moment Coppeard telephoned him to confess to the crime.

Mr Smith said: “He telephoned me to tell me he had lost all my money the night before he confessed to police.

“It was such an abuse of power that was the worst thing. He betrayed everybody’s trust.

“You do not defraud people out of such a large amount of money without being a trusted member of the congregation. He was a church warden member and a magistrate.”

Mr Coppeard will appear at Chelmsford Crown Court on October 21 for sentencing.

For more on this story, see this week's Guardian - out Thursday.